1000 Recordings to Hear Before You Die by Workman Publishing

SALSA

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■ MUSICALS GOSPEL

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country ■ classical

ska

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FUNK

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THE MORE YOU LOVE MUSIC , THE MORE MUSIC YOU LOVE

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TECHNO ■

DUB ■

ROCKABILLY

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swing ■ ■

REGGAE

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samba POP

dance

DOO - Wop

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psychedelia

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FADO

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BLUEGRASS

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ZYDECo

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NEW WAVE

ELECTRONICA

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E S se n t i a l M U S I C : Miles Davis, Kind of Blue ✦ Woody Guthrie, Dust Bowl Ballads ✦ Bob Marley and the Wailers, Exodus ✦ Marvin Gaye, What’s Going On ✦ The Beach Boys, Pet Sounds ✦ Sam Phillips, Fan Dance ✦ Georges Bizet, Carmen (continued on back cover)

folk ■ R&B

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JUJU

songbook

BOSSA NOVA

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a LISTENER ’ S L i f e L i s t by TOM MOON

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MOON

SOUL

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RAP

CELTIC

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a listener’s Life List

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VOCALS

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■ psychedelia ■ FADO PUNK ■ DOO-Wop

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BLUEGRASS

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ZYDECo

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NEW WAVE

JUJU ■ ELECTRONICA ■ BOSSA NOVA ■ REGGAE ■ SOUL ■ RAP ■ ROCKABILLY ■ DUB ■ TECHNO ■ ska ■ FUNK ■ SALSA

ROCK

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www.workman.com Please visit us at www.1000Recordings.com

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HEAVY METAL

Workman Publishing • New York ISBN 978-0-7611-3963-8 • $19.95 U.S. / $22.95 Can.

POP ■ songbook ■ folk ■ R&B ■ dance

BOOKLAND EAN

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“There are only a few music writers I have respect for. Tom Moon is one of them.” —Sonny Rollins

HIp - hop

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elebrate the joy, the revelation, the mystery, the fun, the sheer shivers-up-the-spine pleasure of great music. Essential operas. Milestone rock albums. An education in the blues. The world of world. Classical from Bach to Bartók to Beethoven to Brahms. And dozens of unexpected gems, surprising T OM M OON is a regular contributor discoveries, and long-lost masterto National Public pieces. The entries are arranged Radio’s All Things alphabetically, to break down Considered, as well as genre bias and broaden every Rolling Stone, Blender, listener’s horizons—think Miles and other publications. He spent Davis to Claude Debussy to twenty years as a music critic at the the melodic story-songs of The Philadelphia Inquirer. He’s also had Decemberists. And the writing a career as a professional musician, is passionate, informed, opinionworking as a saxophonist in assorted ated. Includes indexes for every rock bands, cruise ship orchestras, and Maynard Ferguson’s big band. mood and occasion.

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WORLD

The Musical Adventure of a Lifetime

the more you love music, the more music you love

jazz ■ opera

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Joni Mitchell, Court and Spark ✦ Arvo Pärt, Tabula Rasa ✦ Joe Lovano, Quartets: Live at the Village Vanguard ✦ Lorraine Hunt Lieberson, Bach Cantatas ✦ Nas, Illmatic ✦ Tom Waits, Rain Dogs

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BLUES

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■ samba ■ VOCALS ■ swing ■ CELTIC BLUES ■ WORLD ■ HEAVY METAL

(continued from front cover) Philip Glass, Einstein on the Beach

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PUNK

■ classical ■ MUSICALS ■ country jazz ■ opera ■ HIp-hop ■ ROCK ■ GOSPEL

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™

a L I S T E N E R ’ S L i f e L ist by TOM MOON WORKMAN PUBLISHING, NEW YORK

“When I hear music, I fear no danger. I am invulnerable. I see no foe. I am related to the earliest times, and to the latest.” — HENRY DAVID THOREAU

Copyright © 2008 by Tom Moon 1,000 Recordings to Hear Before You Die is a trademark of Workman Publishing. 1,000 . . . Before You Die is a registered trademark of Workman Publishing. All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced—mechanically, electronically, or by any other means, including photocopying—without written permission of the publisher. Published simultaneously in Canada by Thomas Allen & Son Limited. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available. ISBN 978-0-7611-3963-8 (pb); 978-0-7611-4941-5 (hc) Layout and interior design by Katherine Tomkinson Icon design by Alan Kikuchi Workman books are available at special discount when purchased in bulk for premiums and sales promotions as well as for fund-raising or educational use. Special editions or book excerpts also can be created to specification. For details, contact the Special Sales Director at the address below. Workman Publishing Company, Inc. 225 Varick Street New York, NY 10014-4381 www.workman.com Printed in the United States of America First printing August 2008 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

For Kim and Savannah ✦

✦✦

In memory of George Horan, who opened the door . . .

Acknowledgments

his book was born with the help of a constellation of passionate, energetic, and extremely generous people. It could not have happened any other way. My debts are many, and they begin with my mom,

Margaret Moon Koryda, who’s supported me in every way imaginable and been an inspiration besides. My family put up with constant schedule upheavals, crazy hours, and on long car trips, a listening diet that might be best described as “challenging.” My wife, Kim, and my daughter, Savannah, never complained—they were right with me for the whole journey. Their love, patience, and positivity literally kept me going. Every day. My friends got used to not seeing me much, and yet still managed to support me—sometimes just by answering my “daily poll” e-mails (which Art Blakey? Moanin’ or A Night at Birdland Vol. 1?). Among those who provided key lifelines and dispatches from the world beyond my office: Stephen Fried, Bob Broockman, Sharon Cloud, Aaron Levinson, Brad Rubens, and the members of MusicMusicMusic, the informal gathering of record producers and deep musical thinkers in Philadelphia. The evenings I spent with them provided me with countless gems. One attraction of this project was that it forced me to explore types of music I knew only casually. My most acute need was in classical music and opera. Though

I’d read scores and listened to the great masterworks in music school, I lacked a sense of the context. I needed a guru, and found an amazing one in a cubicle not far from mine at the Philadelphia Inquirer. The critic David Patrick Stearns instantly grasped the scope of the mission. He opened his library to me, and walked me through a lifetime’s worth of musical astonishments in all shades and hues. Our discussions helped refine my thinking, and sharpened my responses to all sorts of music. Many of his preferred recordings became mine. This book would not exist without him. Every writer should have an editor who listens as intently as Margot Herrera does. Margot believed in my ability to actually execute the big idea of this book years before I did. She was curious about the music I discovered, and able to translate my runaway enthusiasm into understandable English. More significantly, she maintained, throughout, a clear sense of the book’s mission and its “tone”—when she wasn’t buying an idea, it wasn’t to be bought. Lots of times I had doubts; Margot never wavered. Her relentless energy and high spirit propelled this project every step of the way. I fear I am spoiled forever.

Anthony DeCurtis came on board as down the long and winding road from a line editor and right away the project manuscript into galleys into pages, with hit another level; his input snapped my the able help of her assistant Adrianna sometimes flabby prose into shape, and Borgia. Barbara Peragine spent counthis insights made every entry better. less hours typesetting it. Photo editor Recently we did a bit of mental math and Aaron Clendening searched high and realized he’d been editing me at Rolling low for appropriate images. The copy Stone and other places for twenty years. editor, Tim DeWerff, caught factual For enduring that with such errors, while two hardworkgrace and sensitivity, he ing interns, Mike Miller While deserves either an award and Alicia Matusheski, proworking as a vided valuable input. The or a mental health exam. critic, I was incredible Rob Sternitzky Probably both. fortunate Another saint was assisflagged down still more tant editor Cassie Murdoch. errors and, just as importo converse Throughout, Cassie hantantly, challenged my facile with—and dled a blinding array of learn from— assumptions—his catches details without blinking— made an enormous differhundreds of ence in the final product. she organized my ragtag recording lists into spreadsheets that Cathy Dorsey organized artists. are works of art, caught this mass of information glitches in the text, and into a thoughtful index. kept the endless volleys of editing on Many thanks are due the folks who are dedicated to spreading the word track, all while offering great insights. about this book—COO Walter Weintz, The first day I walked into Workman, I was struck by the spirit of teamwork Brianna Yamashita and Amy Corley in that seemed to define the place. The folks publicity, Katie Ford in marketing, Pat who worked on this book brought not only Upton in licensing, copy/web/advertising skill and professionalism, but also heart guru David Schiller, and Justin Nisbet of and soul. Publisher Peter Workman was workman.com. generous with his time and insights, At key moments, additional help was cheerfully provided by Steve Hochman, and along the way proved open to ideas Dominic Umile, and Glenn Chapman. both conventional and not so. The same I’m deeply grateful to all. is true of editor-in-chief Suzie Bolotin, A special thanks goes to Patricia designer Katherine Tomkinson, creative Schultz, the author of the 1,000 Places director David Matt, and Doug Wolff in books, for sharing this incredible conthe production department. Production cept. Patricia set a high bar: Her vivid editor Carol White guided the book

descriptions and crisp writing inspired me to communicate more clearly. While working as a critic, I was fortunate to converse with—and learn from—hundreds of recording artists. It’s impossible to list all of them, but here are some whose enthusiasm still rings in my ears, and as a result lives in these pages: Keith Richards, Al Green, Bono and U2, Rickie Lee Jones, Jeff Tweedy, Beck, Jimmy Page, Paul Simon, Leonard Cohen, Dave Matthews, Pat Metheny, Ahmir “?uestlove” Thompson, the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Radiohead, Pearl Jam, Elliott Smith, Branford Marsalis, Wynton Marsalis, Pat Martino, Joe Lovano, Ryan Adams, Walter Becker and Donald Fagan, Patti Smith, Joe Boyd, the Roots, Jill Scott, David Gilmour, Shirley Horn, Paul Westerberg, Coldplay, Norah Jones, Sting, Trey Anastasio, Neko Case, Tom Waits, Sonny Rollins, Prince, Keith Jarrett, Caetano Veloso, Frank Zappa, Peter Gabriel, Fiona Apple, Ibrahim Ferrer, Chuck D, Ry Cooder, Herbie Hancock, Miles Davis. Countless people in the media were part of this journey too. Over the years, I’ve been fortunate to work with amazing editors—including Bob Boilen and Brendan Banaszak at National Public Radio, Jason Fine at Rolling Stone, Bruce Warren and David Dye at WXPN, and Linda Hasert at the Philadelphia Inquirer. Among those in the music business who suggested and

helped track down music for this project, a very partial list would include Ambrosia Healy, Melissa Cusick, David Bither, Carla Sacks, Tina Pelikan, Liz Rosenberg, Ken Weinstein, Jim Merlis, Mark Satloff, Marilyn Laverty, Allison Elbl, Regina Joskow, Tracy Mann, Felice Ecker, Steve Martin, Harry Weinger, Dennis Dennehy, Don Lucoff, Bob Merlis, Bill Bentley, Steve Berkowitz, Michael Cuscuna, Matt Hanks, JR Rich, Tom Cording, Lori Earle, Larry Jenkins, Deb Bernadini, Amy Lombardi, Kris Chen, Tracy Zumott. There is no way to properly account for all those who have shaped my awareness as a musician, writer, critic, and listener. One starting point would be the critics who inspired so many shopping trips—Jon Pareles, Richard Harrington, Robert Christgau, Ben Ratliff, David Fricke, Greg Kot, Will Hermes, Alan Light, Tim Page, Alex Ross, and the late Robert Palmer and Whitney Balliett. I’ve been lucky to encounter teachers who enlightened me about not just the inner workings of music, but also its infinite nuances—including my composition professor, Ron Miller, and my high school band director, George Horan. I’ve learned, though, that everyone can be a teacher—I owe a great deal to strangers, record store clerks, and DJs who said “check this out!” and shared something of their hearts. Thanks for ✦ that. A thousand zillion times over.

Contents Introduction: Chasing the Essential. ................................................................... x

Navigating This Book. ................................................................ xv

A . ................................................................................................................................................ 1 ABBA to Albert Ayler

B. ............................................................................................................................................... 31 Baby Huey and the Babysitters to David Byrne and Brian Eno

C. ........................................................................................................................................... 137 Café Tacuba to Cypress Hill

............................................................................................................................................ 201 I. K. Dairo and His Blue Spots to Bob Dylan

 ............................................................................................................................................ 247 The Eagles to Cesaria Evora

. ........................................................................................................................................... 267 John Fahey to Funkadelic

............................................................................................................................................ 295 Peter Gabriel to Buddy Guy

H........................................................................................................................................... 333 Charlie Haden to Huun-Huur-Tu

I, J. ..................................................................................................................................... 377 Abdullah Ibrahim Trio to Joy Division

K........................................................................................................................................... 415 Henry Kaiser and David Lindley with Musicians from Madagascar to Fela Kuti and the Afrika 70 L............................................................................................................................................ 437 Steve Lacy and Mal Waldron to Lynyrd Skynyrd

M . ......................................................................................................................................... 461 Baaba Maal with Mansour Seck to My Morning Jacket

N, O.................................................................................................................................... 539 Nas to Buck Owens

P. ............................................................................................................................................. 571 Augustus Pablo to Tito Puente and His Orchestra

Q , R .................................................................................................................................... 623 Queen to Mitch Ryder and the Detroit Wheels

S . ............................................................................................................................................. 667 Kaija Saariaho to System of a Down

T. ............................................................................................................................................. 759 Taj Mahal to McCoy Tyner

U, V. .................................................................................................................................... 793 Francisco Ulloa to Kevin Volans

W............................................................................................................................................. 837 Richard Wagner to Tammy Wynette

X, Y, Z. ........................................................................................................................... 877 X to ZZ Top

108 More Recordings to Know About................................................ 891 Sources. ............................................................................................................................ 893 Special Indexes. ........................................................................................................ 894 Musical Genres....................................................................................................... 894 Blues............................................................................................................. 894 Classical . ................................................................................................... 894 Country ...................................................................................................... 896 Electronica ............................................................................................... 897 Folk .............................................................................................................. 897 Gospel . ........................................................................................................ 898 Hip-Hop ..................................................................................................... 898 Jazz .............................................................................................................. 898

Special Indexes, continued Musicals...................................................................................................... 900 Opera. .......................................................................................................... 901 Pop ............................................................................................................... 901 R&B.............................................................................................................. 901 Rock.............................................................................................................. 902 Vocals........................................................................................................... 905 World............................................................................................................ 906

Occasions.................................................................................................................... 909 Cocktail Hour........................................................................................... 909 Get the Party Started............................................................................ 910 Music to Inspire Reflection .................................................................911 Romance Enhancers. ............................................................................. 913 Cardio Workout........................................................................................ 914 Play This for the Kids............................................................................915 Roadtrip Soundtracks: AM and PM. .............................................. 916 Lazy Sunday Morning........................................................................... 917 Headphone Journey.............................................................................. 918 Supermanâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Earbuds............................................................................. 920

Classical and Opera Composers.................................................................. 921 Classical and Opera Performers . ................................................................. 926 General Index............................................................................................................. 939

Introduction

Chasing the Essential

hen I began work on this book in the fall of 2004, the big number in the title didn’t rattle me much. Music critics love to make lists. Given a few minutes, we can crank out a roundup of

All-Time Best Singles, or Greatest Beethoven Symphony Performances, or the Most Mind-Bending Guitar Solos. I’d generated scores of such lists over the twenty years I spent covering music at the Philadelphia Inquirer, Rolling Stone, NPR’s All Things Considered, and elsewhere. Along the way, I’d encountered more than my share of spine-tingling records. I figured I’d be able to pull together at least a thousand worthy candidates, no sweat. It was the “Before You Die” part that tripped me up. Now there’s nothing wrong with a gentle reminder that the clock’s ticking, that it could be “party over” for any of us at any time. The awareness of mortality tends to bring clarity—as in, time is running out so consider what you listen to carefully. But even with that idea foremost in my mind, it seemed impossible to get to the essence of something as vast and elusive as music. Can any one list hope to represent the full range of riches? Is there such a thing as a single universally beloved classic recording? Are there ten? A hundred? A thousand? Eventually, after wrestling with these

irresolvable questions for a while, I came to see the title as a mandate: Everything here had to have some incandescent lifechanging energy inside it. To be true to the book’s mission, each choice had to be a peak experience, music so vibrant it could lift curious listeners out of the mundane and send them hurtling at warp speed in a new direction—toward ecstasy, perhaps, or coolsville. Obviously those encounters couldn’t come secondhand—I had to dive in and dig, as though on a vision quest. I couldn’t hold each piece to some abstract criterion, either; pure pleasure was the only meaningful metric. I had to trust my ears. And heart. Every day for more than three years, I went off searching. This book is the product of my journey. It’s been an odyssey powered by the thrill of discovery and governed by a simple notion: That the more you love music, the more music you love. As I chased down recordings from all over the world, just about every day brought unexpected revelations—sometimes a life lesson would arrive wrapped inside the weary groan of a bluesman; sometimes a single devastating chord change said all there is to say about heartache. My hope is

that these jumping-off points will inspire more searches, lifetimes of exploration.

regarded as key to the evolution of music as an art form, but I didn’t blindly follow the endorsements of experts—the music ✦✦✦ still had to connect on a visceral level. here is no standard map to follow in With those timeless classics thundersearch of great music. You have to go ing inside my head, I went scavenging for your own way. Likewise, there’s no foolproof lesser-known works that might hit me with strategy for creating a list like this. Inevitably, the same force. The hunting-and-gathering I was drawn to works of lastbecame an obsession, but ing significance—they’re when I think back, it really It would be prime examples of just how was just an extension of the a shame to all-consuming and intense kind of searching I did as a perish before music can be. At the start, kid. In a sense, preliminary spending an research for this project I assembled a preliminary list of World Culture Greatest began in the band room hour inside Hits—Mozart’s late symthe tangle of at Langley High School in phonies, Bob Dylan’s Blonde taut, perfect Northern Virginia, in the on Blonde, John Coltrane’s presence of an irascible images A Love Supreme, Jessye white-haired trumpet player spun by Joni named George Horan. Norman singing Strauss’s Mitchell. Four Last Songs. I listened More Miles Davis than Mr. with minimal distractions. Holland, Horan considered Often, I thought about that ticking himself a musician first and a teacher clock—how it would be a shame to per- second. He viewed music as a calling and ish before spending an hour inside the was deeply offended by any lackluster pertangle of taut, perfect images spun by formance—if you weren’t cutting it, he’d Joni Mitchell. Before hearing the con- bellow, “You think time is a magazine!” I summate technical mastery of classical can still remember him corralling the jazz pianist Vladimir Horowitz. Before being band to listen to Steely Dan’s Aja shortly immersed in the mesmerizing sound- after it came out. With little conductorscapes created by Radiohead. like gestures and exhortations to “check I thought also about Duke Ellington’s this out,” Horan revealed the mysteries notion that there are only two kinds of embedded in the music’s architecture. He music—good music, and “the other taught us to dig deeper, that if you listen kind.” I wanted the good kind, music that closely, there’s always more to hear. feels vital and alive whether the listener As he did with so many others, happens to know the backstory or not. Horan set my course—I’ve spent my I investigated plenty of titles that are adult life studying, playing, composing,

xii

1 , 0 0 0 R ecordings to H ear B efore you die

and writing about music, and all of those experiences are woven into the pages of this book. I worked for several years as a professional musician, which some days meant playing the circus and some days meant backing great singers like the suave Cheo Feliciano. I toiled in cruise ship orchestras and in rock bands, and for a year toured with jazz trumpeter Maynard Ferguson. On just about every gig, I encountered gifted musicians who were as excited about records as I was. We’d spend hours scrutinizing the circuit-breaking genius of Miles Davis’s ’60s quintet, or the dense forests of sound conjured by Frank Zappa. The titles my coworkers recommended often zoomed onto my list of personal favorites; I carried them with me from place to place and shared them as often as possible. I’m sharing them again in this book. I cast a wide net, in the hope of making the book as diverse as possible. I’d ask people at parties what records I absolutely should not miss; I took note of what was playing on the jukebox. I read liner notes, pored over books, scrutinized those All-Time Best lists the British music magazines seem to generate every other month. And I read reviews from customers at online retailers. If somebody wrote passionately about how a piece of music inspired them, I needed to hear it. Not every rave panned out, but a surprising number did—scores of the entries in this book were completely unknown to me when I began working on it.

And I went back through the hundreds of interviews I’d done with musicians and recording artists in my two decades as a journalist—among them, Keith Richards, Miles Davis, Caetano Veloso, Beck, and Keith Jarrett. In almost every conversation, I’d ask what music had profound impact on their lives. Perhaps because they know how hard it is to document an elusive inspiration, artists speak with open awe about records that affected them. Their insights became part of my understanding of music, and their recommendations are an important part of this book. At one point the list of possible titles ballooned to more than three thousand. Then what I remember as the “pain and misery” phase began. It was possible to make a solid case for each of the choices, but I still had to winnow the list. Often it came down to which piece hit me the hardest. I agonized over which Talking Heads record to include. I found myself embroiled in loud arguments about which jazz organist was the hippest—my favorite, Richard “Groove” Holmes, didn’t make the final round, because his blazing intensity wasn’t consistently evident on record. This happened over and over again, in every genre—the book’s metaphoric cutting-room floor is cluttered with genius. ✦

✦✦

long the way more fundamental issues arose. Should this project focus on single songs, individual movements, or larger pieces—that is, old-

INTRODUCTION

xiii

fashioned long-playing albums? No ques- music by genre was an obvious route, but tion, these days the single-track down- on reflection it seemed the only way to load is king. I spotlighted some singles honor the spirit of the project was to preshere, but eventually concluded that the ent the entries dictionary-style, alphalone track doesn’t reveal enough about betically by artist. Finding renegade an artist. Spend a while inside an album, jazz pianist Cecil Taylor next to sensitive and a deeper impression emerges—of the singer-songwriter James Taylor, who artist, and the time of the work’s creation. abuts the Russian composer Tchaikovsky Whether or not the tracks underscores the astounding are conceptually linked, This journey range of musical expresthere are usually “threads” sion available, while subtly taught me of ideas and images rundiscouraging people from that there’s ning through great albums: hanging out in the genre It’s one thing to hear the great treasure neighborhoods (ghettos?) magnificently ruminative they know best. This jourwaiting on second movement from the other side ney taught me that there’s Schubert’s B-Flat Piano of wherever great treasure waiting on Sonata; it’s quite another the other side of wherever you draw your you draw your territorial to follow the piece from territorial its initial phrase. The only lines. Those wishing to drill lines. way to “get” the composer’s deeply into specific areas intent is to take the full ride. will find genre indexes in Likewise, by grabbing just “Money,” the the back, starting on page 894. But my single from Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the hope is that adventurous readers will flip Moon, you miss the sweep and grandeur through the pages, land on something at of the album. random, seek out the music, and have an Listening this way requires patience, unexpected eureka! moment. curiosity, and that most precious commod✦✦✦ ity, time. I’d argue it’s worth it. No matter here’s a scene in Almost Famous, how fast the download speed, music still Cameron Crowe’s semiautobiographunfolds in real time, one stanza after another. It’s a journey. Not every record- ical film about his unlikely rise as a teening will come jumping out to leave a strong age rock critic, that illustrates the kinetic first impression. Sometimes great music thrill of discovering music. The Cameron takes a while to get under your skin. But character’s big sister has just left home, and he’s checking out her record collecwhen it does, it stays there. Then there was the question of how tion—gazing meaningfully at Cream’s to organize the book. Categorizing the Wheels of Fire and Led Zeppelin II

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1 , 0 0 0 R eco R D ings to H ear B efore you die

as though trying to decipher sacred texts. When he opens the gatefold of the Who’s rock opera Tommy, he finds a note: “Listen to Tommy with a candle burning and you will see your entire future.” He follows the instructions, drops the needle on the hi-fi, and hears those galvanizing guitar chords, a call-to-arms across generations. Even though he’s maybe ten years old, he promptly gets that glassy look in his eyes that says, “Please don’t disturb this cosmic moment.” With this one scene, which has no dialogue, Crowe makes manifest something music lovers know in their bones: That if you listen intently, you will encounter more than just constellations of cool sounds—that lurking within them is information worth having, perhaps even a signpost pointing you toward the next key step on your journey.

That’s how music works. It can take your blues, dust them in a wicked mojo, sneak them to that crossroads where the Devil hangs out, and swap them for a veggie burrito made by a blissed-out Deadhead in a parking lot. This might not be exactly what you ordered, but it might inspire you all the same. Music can shred your illusions, show you ways of getting along in the world, expose vices and vanities, bring calm to moments of turbulence. It can shine a light on the traps that await you on your path, and offer a sneak preview of what life feels like when you fall into them. It can send your fantasies into overdrive and magnify the reality of your surroundings. As Leonard Bernstein once said, music can “name the unnameable and communicate the unknowable.” But don’t take his word. Or mine. Put one of these thousand records on, light a ✦ candle, and see what happens.

INTRODUCTION

Navigating This Book

he recordings in this book are arranged alphabetically by artist. This is true regardless of musical style, except in the case of classical music. Most classical titles appear under the composer’s name, but

some are found under the performer’s. This occurs where the performance is of primary interest—for its superlative quality or historical significance. Because this could be potentially confusing, there are two special indexes devoted to classical music and opera, one for composers and one for performers. Thus, to find every recording of compositions by Beethoven mentioned in the book, consult the Classical and Opera Composers index on page 921. To track down a particular soloist or orchestra, consult the Classical and Opera Performers index on page 926. When there are multiple artists included on the same title, the work appears under V, for Various Artists. In the case of a collaboration between two equally billed artists, the entry appears under the last name of the first artist listed on the work. (For example, the entry about the Bill Evans–Jim Hall title Undercurrent appears in E, for Evans.) Following each entry is a short listener’s guide that includes basic information—the year of release, genre, issuing label, and suggestions of key tracks that are representative of the work as a whole. The genre designation is intended as a general reference point; descriptions of music by style or category

are notoriously imprecise (so much so that in some cases multiple genres are listed). There are also recommendations for further listening: CATALOG CHOICE identifies one or more other works by the same performer or composer. NEXT STOP offers a recording by a different artist whose work is somehow related (or similar to) the work discussed in the entry. AFTER THAT suggests a recording that is less directly related, and may represent a slightly larger leap. Starting on page 909, you will find a series of themed “occasion” indexes— Music to Inspire Reflection, Get the Party Started, Roadtrip Soundtrack, to name a few—with recommendations drawn from the entries. Every effort has been made to spotlight recordings that are commercially available. However, due to the vagaries of the music business, some titles mentioned here may have already fallen out of print. To obtain these, a bit of detective work may be necessary. The list of sources, on page 893, includes websites and retail stores that specialize in obscure or hard-to-find music. My blog, links to buy the music, and a forum for sharing your favorites can be ✦ found at www.1000recordings.com.

ABBA ✦ Dimi Mint Abba and Khalifa Ould Eide ✦ The Muhal Richard Abrams Orchestra ✦ The Abyssinian Baptist Choir ✦ AC/DC ✦ John Adams ✦ Johnny Adams ✦ Ryan Adams ✦ The Cannonball Adderley Quintet ✦ King Sunny Ade ✦ Aerosmith ✦ Mahmoud Ahmed ✦ Air ✦ Arthur Alexander ✦ Alice in Chains ✦ Mose Allison ✦ The Allman Brothers Band ✦ The Almanac Singers ✦ Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass ✦ Los Amigos Invisibles ✦ Albert Ammons and Meade “Lux” Lewis ✦ Marian Anderson ✦ The Animals ✦ Aphex Twin ✦ Fiona Apple ✦ The Arcade Fire ✦ Martha Argerich ✦ Louis Armstrong ✦ Arrested Development ✦ Art Ensemble of Chicago ✦ Fred Astaire ✦ Chet Atkins and Les Paul ✦ Albert Ayler

abba

The Craft of the Hit Song

Gold

ABBA n entire industry has grown up around the worship of ABBA, the two former couples from Sweden who became one of the pop powerhouses of the 1970s. There’s the long-running Broadway revue Mamma Mia!, books,

anthologies, and even a museum That gloss explains some in Stockholm, all dedicated to of the success, especially conthe glory of pop songs that can sidering that in terms of nuts seem, to unbelievers, like lightand bolts, songs like “Mamma weight, airbrushed nothingness. Mia” are fairly inconsequenLove or hate ABBA, this tial. But some of the group’s much is difficult to dispute: The other massive singles—“SOS,” singles this quartet released “Knowing Me, Knowing You,” between 1974 and 1979 are and the unstoppably buoyant, models of impeccable craft, often overlooked “Fernando”— ranking with the most carefully Gold is one of the Top 40 contain refrains so damn giddy sculpted radio fare of all time. bestselling albums of all time they can’t be easily purged from Principal songwriters Björn worldwide. the brain. These tightly scripted Ulvaeus and Benny Andersson songs are an excellent starter started out like many in Europe circa 1970— kit for those wanting to investigate the DNA of they learned to sing in English, and tried to post-Beatles pop. imitate the radiant refrains and gilded vocal harmonies of the Beatles. They got good at it Genre: Pop. Released: 1992, Polar/ right away (see “Waterloo,” the first worldwide Polydor. Key Tracks: “SOS,” “Dancing hit from 1974) and grafted that stuff onto the Queen,” “Waterloo,” “Take a Chance on Me,” beats of the 1970s, notably disco and Euro- “Fernando.” Catalog Choice: Arrival. style funk. Then ABBA polished everything to Next Stop: The Cardigans: Life. After a blinding sheen. That: Duran Duran: Rio.

Severe, Stirring, Beguiling: Another Side of Africa

Moorish Music from Mauritania

Dimi Mint Abba and Khalifa Ould Eide

he traditional music of Mauritania exists between worlds. It encompasses both the devotional aspect of Islamic life in North Africa, and the rhythmic energy and group interplay of sub-Saharan “black” Africa. For centuries

abba • abrams

the desert republic has functioned as a crossroads, a place where various African and Arabic cultures, from Berber to Wolof and Tuareg, have met. That’s reflected in the sounds: The indigenous music combines the calm authority of the ancients— some texts are based on centuries-old Islamic poetry—with the urgent cries of modern life. When a singer of Dimi Mint Abba’s persuasive power is involved, the contrasts and irreconcilable differences fade into music of fierce, transcendent passion—songs of devotion that need no translation. Abba and her husband, Khalifa Ould Eide, were both born into the iggawin, or griot, tradition. In Mauritania, griots are a caste apart, regarded simultaneously as truth-telling folksingers, keepers of the poetry and heritage, and wizards in possession of paranormal powers. Abba’s family is a particularly influential one: In 1960, after the Islamic African nation won independence from France, her father wrote what became the Mauritanian national anthem. He’s also credited with helping to “modernize” traditional music, by replacing the four-stringed instrument known as the tidinit with the sixstring guitar. On this recording, made in London in 1990, Abba’s husband provides the accom-

paniment (on tidinit and/or guitar), and their two daughters add percussion and chanted vocals. Abba sings and handles the percussion instruments traditionally played by women, including the ardin, which is akin to the West African cora or calabash harp. These simple settings provide Abba with a sturdy framework for her vocals, which are largely improvised. Like other Islamic singers, Abba doesn’t always stay within a given tonality—when she’s really riled up, her adlibs veer into wild quarter-tones and semitones that are manifestations of pure spirit. While everything on this set sparkles, of particular note is “Sawt Elfan” (Art’s Plume), which brought Abba the top prize at a 1977 competition in Tunis. Through a series of riveting verses, Abba asserts that artists make more consequential contributions to society than warriors. The fervent, resolute singing she does here pretty much ends that argument. Genre: World/Mauritania. Released: 1990, World Circuit. Key Tracks: “Waidalal Waidalal,” “Yar Allahoo,” “Sawt Elfan.” Catalog Choice: Music and Songs of Mauritania. Next Stop: Tinariwen: Amassakoul. After That: Andy Palacio and the Garifuna Collective: Wátina.

Effortless, Unpredictable Free Jazz

Blu Blu Blu

The Muhal Richard Abrams Orchestra

utbursts of childlike joy and growling blues catcalls animate the music of Muhal Richard Abrams, the pianist and composer who is one of the stealth legends of modern jazz. A founding member of the Chicago-

based Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM), one of the most influential outfits dedicated to progressive jazz, Abrams was on the scene when free jazz

was coalescing in the 1960s. With his debut recording as a leader in 1967 and many of the titles that followed, he expanded the toolkit of the typical jazz radical with ideas

abrams • abyssinian baptist choir

from blues and New Orleans and R&B, and this is one of a music. long line of originals that celThis 1990 session is one ebrates (and strengthens) the of several thrilling Abrams link between gut-level blues works for large ensemble and the visceral expressions (another is the hard-to-find of the jazz avant-garde. Rejoicing with the Light) in Other musicians have had which angular, inventive writtrouble getting those styles ten material is offset by slightly to mesh. Abrams, a free-jazz unhinged solo passages. The subversive, does it effortlessly, band includes trumpeter Jack creating unpredictable music Walrath, vibraphonist Warren distinguished by a bustling Smith, and a whistler named big-city exuberance. Joel Brandon, whose feature, Abrams taught himself how to “One for the Whistler,” is a play on a small spinet piano. Genre: Jazz. suite that includes a desultory Released: 1991, Black ballad and an agitated Afro-Cuban poly- Saint. Key Tracks: “Blu Blu Blu,” “One rhythm. (Those curious to hear what a jazz for the Whistler,” “Stretch Time.” Catalog whistler sounds like when he’s got the spot- Choices: Rejoicing with the Light; Sightsong; light should cue up “Stretch Time,” which View from Within. Next Stop: Art Ensemble features a spry, if short, Brandon excursion.) of Chicago: Urban Bushmen (see p. 28). After The spirited title track is a tribute to Muddy That: Henry Threadgill: Too Much Sugar for Waters; Abrams got his start playing blues a Dime.

What 120 Zealous Souls Can Do

Shakin’ the Rafters

The Abyssinian Baptist Choir

he rhythm sections that toil behind gospel choirs can usually be found way in the back of the mix, providing unobtrusive backbeats designed to send the singing higher with as little fanfare as possible. Professor

Alex Bradford, a stage personality, pianist, and singer who was the music minister at Newark’s Abyssinian Baptist Church in the 1960s, alters that approach on this live recording, to thrilling effect. The musicians serve as catalysts, not accompanists—their crisp, unified attack sets the tone for the soloists. It galvanizes the choir. Runs the show. The three mortals who make up this screaming locomotive of a rhythm section jolt the 120 Abyssinian voices out of the

Sunday-services routine into near-ecstatic communication they sustain from the beginning of this disc to the end. The songs are mostly Bradford originals, expressions of faith and praise that emulate the works of legendary gospel composer Thomas A. Dorsey (see p. 233). Several of them belong alongside Dorsey’s best, including “Said I Wasn’t Gonna Tell Nobody,” which is resolute from the opening line, and the 6/8 blues “He Is Such an Understanding God.” Loaded with crackling

abyssinian baptist choir • ac / dc

call-and-response exchanges and outbreaks of intricately contrapuntal soul-clapping jubilation, these feature hot solo singing from Calvin White and Margaret Simpson, but they’re never really solo vehicles. The choir is right there, contributing asides and shouts, blasting past doubt and despair with a contagious energy most often associated with the early days of rock and roll.

Genre: Gospel. Released: 1960, Columbia. (Reissued 1991, Sony Legacy.) Key Tracks: “Said I Wasn’t Gonna Tell Nobody,” “He Is Such an Understanding God.” Next Stop: Gospel Soul Children: Gospel Soul Children of New Orleans. After That: Various Artists: Jubilation! Great Gospel Performances, Vols. 1 and 2.

Lean Mean Arena Rock

Back in Black

AC/DC

efore he began producing his ex-wife Shania Twain’s enormously lucrative high-gloss country-pop, Robert John “Mutt” Lange largely defined the sound of bad-boy arena rock. His productions—particularly this career effort

for Aussie rockers AC/DC, ness (check out “What Do You which has sold over sixteen Do for Money Honey”) weighed million copies in the U.S. in at industrial strength—and alone, and its Def Leppard was executed with surgical counterpart Pyromania, which precision. kick-started a pop-metal revoThe album’s tightly wound lution—defined an entire strain radio songs—“Shoot to Thrill,” of ’80s suburban rebellion. the proud peacock strut “Back Back in Black was AC/DC’s most Even when the music itself in Black,” and the explosive popular album, selling more than wasn’t terribly threatening, 42 million copies worldwide. “You Shook Me All Night Lange gave it a distinct whiff of Long”—share a mean streak. badass menace. The rhythm section gets right near the boilBack in Black is one of Lange’s crowning ing point and then hangs there, waiting for the achievements, a delicate balance of power schoolboy-uniform–wearing Angus Young to and finesse that defined the commercial side deliver demonically twisted lead guitar that of heavy music for years after its release. pushes things over the edge. He always comes Recorded in 1980, just two months after AC/ through: Every last solo here is a thrill ride. DC’s lead singer Bon Scott died (according to the coroner’s report, he’d “drunk himself to Genre: Rock. Released: 1980, death”), it is a ten-song feast of tightly wound, Atlantic. (Reissued 2003, Epic.) Key Tracks: enormously disciplined stomp rock. New “Shoot to Thrill,” “What Do You Do for Money singer Brian Johnson was as willing to shred the Honey,” “Back in Black,” “You Shook Me All upper end of his voice as Scott had been, and Night Long.” next Stop: Def Leppard: Lange made sure that every walloping rhythm Pyromania. After That: Thin Lizzy: guitar supporting Johnson’s tales of lascivious- Jailbreak.

adams

Big Chord Changes

Harmonium John Adams San Francisco Symphony Orchestra and Chorus (Edo de Waart, cond.)

hen the noted minimalist John Adams began writing this piece for chorus and large orchestra using poems by Emily Dickinson and John Donne, he confronted a paradox of poetry: Though the lines might

hold hints of rhythms and revimages come outfitted with eries, or carry the forlorn tone shimmering and distinct texof a cello playing alone in the tures; by the end, as the speaker distance, they can lose resoin the poem heads toward eternance when yoked too tightly nity, the music acquires the to music. The poet’s discipline faint bluish luster some nearis about proportion and order; death survivors have described the moment a melody swells too as the “channel” between life aggressively into the forefront, and death. the spell is broken. This is one of two Adams Adams overcomes this by John Adams started composing pieces from roughly the same treating the text as just another at the age of 10. period with “Harmony” in element, not the center-ring the title. Harmonielehre, the attraction. Often the words take a back seat to caustic commentary on twelve-tone music, is his elaborate schemes of tension and release; more beloved by critics. It’s a big work, with Harmonium is really a study of magical chords brainy transitions that utilize the same types of and the many ways a resourceful composer tension/release schemes found in Harmonium, might resolve them. Sometimes, on the setting of only in more animated, gee-whiz ways. Though Donne’s “Negative Love,” the harmony seems Harmonium is less immediately gratifying and static, with Adams moving massive blocks of murkier, it resonates more profoundly. When consonant harmony around slowly, shifting Adams engineers one of his epic chord changes, tones one at a time in the manner of a “dissolv- you don’t merely appreciate the craft and the ing” shot in a film. At other times, notably on the way the words figure in, you feel it in your gut. transcendental “Wild Nights,” Adams creates extended passages of gathering-storm portent, Genre: Classical. Released: 1984, building tension over several minutes until ECM New Series. Key tracks: Part 1: there’s an eruption. This sends orchestra and “Negative Love”; Part 2: “Because I Could Not chorus lunging into an unexpected new key cen- Stop for Death,” “Wild Nights.” Catalog ter, a wild frontier where new phantoms lurk. Choices: Harmonielehre, City of Birmingham “Because I Could Not Stop for Death” is Symphony (Simon Rattle, cond.); Grand Pianola even more visual. Adams follows Dickinson’s Music, Solisti New York (Ransom Wilson, cond.). character on a journey, perhaps in a slow- Next Stop: Steve Reich: Reich Remixed. moving carriage, through the things she knew After That: Miles Davis: The Complete In a in life. The “fields of gazing grain” and other Silent Way Sessions (see p. 210).

adams

An Astounding Opera, as Fresh as the News

The Death of Klinghoffer

John Adams Christopher Maltman, Sanford Sylvan, Yvonne Howard, London Symphony Orchestra (John Adams, cond.)

n the liner notes of Earbox, a ten-CD retrospective of his work, John Adams recalls that this operatic account of the 1985 hijacking of the Achille Lauro cruise ship was a magnet for controversy: “The Death of Klinghoffer started

eliciting opinions even before a note of it had been heard outside my studio.” The second of Adams’s “docu-operas” (after Nixon in China), Klinghoffer had a difficult birth, in part because its subject reflected ongoing tensions between Israel and Palestine. Leon Klinghoffer was a wheelchair-bound Jew killed during the hijacking. His murderers were Palestinians. The opera begins with two “prologues” contrasting the plight of impoverished Palestinians (“Chorus of the Exiled Palestinians”) with the middle-class comfort of American Jews (“Chorus of the Exiled Jews”). From there, Adams and librettist Alice Goodman use the hijacking and the graphic murder as the springboard for extended choral meditations on war, human cruelty, and the ephemerality of life. Adams said that his models were the Passions of Bach—“grave, symbolic narrative poems supported by large chordal pillars”—and the connection is easy to hear. Though Adams’s music pulsates with distinctly modern rhythms, he gives the choir deep, pondering melodies. Bach’s choirs express awe over spiritual mysteries; Adams’s group sings as though trying to make sense of the incomprehensible. Many critics initially considered Klinghoffer a step backward from the brighter Nixon in China. Adams made changes, but still the opera wasn’t performed much during the 1990s; some critics dismissed it as more a “hot topic” curio than a serious musical work. Although there are several notable audio recordings, this innova-

tive film adaptation, shot on a cruise ship in the Mediterranean, deserves credit for engendering a reappraisal of Klinghoffer. Unlike most filmed opera productions, there is no lip-synching; the characters are captured singing live, on camera. During the chorales, the screen fills with archival footage from the aftermath of World War II, and faux-archival footage that chronicles the backstories of various characters. These effects are stupendous; they simultaneously sharpen the specifics of the plot and connect this incident to the sorry cavalcade of human tragedy. Adams was perhaps the most significant composer of the late twentieth century, and Klinghoffer helps explain why. The subject matter is volatile, but Adams completely avoids sensationalism. His music is as taut as the soundtrack of an adventure film, with moments of uneasy calm that gradually balloon into towering declarations. At times his overlapping themes achieve a powerful symbiosis: the beautiful, the terrifying, and the sorrowful, all swirled together. Genre: Opera. Released: 2004, Philips. Key Tracks: Prologue: “Chorus of the Exiled Palestinians”; Act 1: “We Are Very Sorry for You”; Act 2: “I’ve Never Been a Violent Man.” another Interpretation: London Opera Chorus, Orchestra of the Opéra de Lyon, (Kent Nagano, cond.). Catalog Choice: Shaker Loops, The Wound-Dresser, Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra. Next Stop: Philip Glass: Koyaanisqatsi.

adams

A Perfect Combination of Singer and Song

The Real Me: Johnny Adams Sings Doc Pomus

Johnny Adams

oc Pomus brought knowing maturity and a strong sense of the blues to the often blithe Brill Building pop of the early ’60s. First along with his writing partner Mort Shuman, and later with any number of musicians

(including, on this album, songs and then fell ill, dying pianist Mac Rebennack, better of lung cancer early the next known as Dr. John; see p. 237), year. Adams continued the the polio-plagued lyricist wrote project, combining the newly about being swept up in—or penned Pomus pieces (includstrung out on—romance. His ing the positively stunning songbook includes “Lonely “Blinded by Love” and “She’s Avenue,” the monster Ray Everything to Me”) with songs Charles hit; “Teenager in written earlier. The result is Love,” made famous by Dion music of unexpected subtlety: and the Belmonts; and the “Mr. Adams can invest life and Singing of heartbreak like he’s Drifters classics “This Magic death into every song he sings, been there too many times, Moment” and “Save the Last moving from shouts to quiver- Adams spins Pomus’s simple ing phrases that seem to be themes into potent, disarmDance for Me.” Not everyone has the dripping tears.” ingly casual blues confessions. —The New York Times chops to sing Pomus persuaHis vocals are spectacular sively, and the songs he wrote throughout, partly because he when he returned to music in the late 1970s, never looks for pity, and partly because he’s after spending a decade as a professional gam- so completely at home in front of this hardbler, are a particular challenge. These address swinging New Orleans band, which features universal emotions without glossing over life’s Dr. John and guitarist Duke Robillard. A complexities; they’re simple odes that require dream pairing of singer and songwriter, this a singer to provide some vulnerability, some probably should have happened a decade or trace of humanity, to complete them. two sooner. The largely unknown singer Johnny Adams (1932–1998) understood this. A Genre: Blues. Released: 1991, dynamo from New Orleans whose forte was Rounder. Key Tracks: “Blinded by blues and R&B, Adams attacked Pomus’s Love,” “She’s Everything to Me,” “Imitation songs like a boxer, mixing direct blows with of Love,” “There Is Always One More Time.” evasive maneuvers. He’d been interpreting Catalog Choice: Room with a View of Pomus for years when, in 1990, he asked the the Blues. Next Stop: Irma Thomas: legend to write some new songs for an album True Believer. After That: Little Milton: he was planning. Pomus put together several If Walls Could Talk.

adams

Young, Sad, High = Songwriting Genius

Heartbreaker

Ryan Adams

n the years after this album established him as a solo performer on the rock and roll radar, Ryan Adams wrote hundreds of songs, and recorded them at a frenzied pace. In 2005 alone he issued three CDs, one of them a two-disc

set. The overdrive hasn’t helped Adams much commercially or critically—a recurring theme in reviews of his work is how much he could use an editor. This set was recorded before the deluge. Its fourteen wry, introspective tunes stand in stark contrast to everything else in Adams’s discography: It was made in a moment when every song wasn’t just an exercise, but actually held significance for him. Part of that could be attributed to the circumstances of its creation. In the six months prior to the sessions, Adams broke up with a longtime girlfriend and dissolved his much-acclaimed band, Whiskeytown, after a series of notably erratic live performances. He immediately took to the road solo, and after several tours sought the help of singer-songwriter Gillian Welch and guitarist and singer David Rawlings. The three set up in a Nashville studio and knocked out the intimate Heartbreaker in two weeks. Starting with the wisebeyond-years, medium-tempo ramble “To Be Young (Is to Be Sad, Is to Be High),” Heartbreaker shows Adams getting comfortable in an impressive range of styles. There are country ballads that express a restless Ryan Adams performs live with raw intensity.

drifter’s longing for home (“Oh My Sweet Carolina,” a lustrous duet with Emmylou Harris), and slow rockers that express a more caustic view (“Come Pick Me Up,” which is anchored by an unperturbed, almost jolly banjo). There’s one brisk country fantasia (“My Winding Wheel”) and songs of yearning (“Call Me on Your Way Back Home”) that are made poignant by Adams’s blown-apart-andnot-hiding-it delivery. The intimacy of the surroundings, and the lingering, long-distance ache Welch and Rawlings bring to the tracks, help make Heartbreaker’s songs sound like unearthed classics. Though he later mastered the technical aspects of recording, Adams here communicates with a raw “you-are-there” urgency—he catches the essence of being young and high, sure of everything and nothing, enthralled with life’s possibilities and at the same time drowning in an ocean of conflicting feelings. In other words, his heart’s in here. Genre:

Rock.

Released: 2000,

Bloodshot. Key Tracks: “My Winding Wheel,” “Oh My Sweet Carolina,” “To Be Young (Is to Be Sad, Is to Be High).” Catalog Choices: Rock N Roll; Gold. Next Stop: The Jayhawks: Hollywood Town Hall. After That: Grant Lee Buffalo: Fuzzy.

A dderley

An Overdose of Smiling Riffs

At the Lighthouse

The Cannonball Adderley Quintet ome jazz musicians feed on torment. Julian “Cannonball” Adderley (1928– 1975) specialized in its opposite—a bubbly, endlessly effusive, happy jazz. Throughout his career, from an early stint in Miles Davis’s band to

his own hard-grooving “soulLater, on a blazing fast “Our jazz” combos of the ’60s, Delight,” he sounds like he’s the alto saxophonist spread bursting at the seams, alive with sunshine wherever he went. energy he can barely handle. The tune could be demanding Recorded in 1960, At the bebop, or a sorrowful blues, Lighthouse catches Adderley’s but when Cannonball rolled group—featuring his brother in, the storm clouds dissolved. Nat on cornet, Victor Feldman His collaboration with singer on piano, and the perpetually Nancy Wilson stands as one underesteemed rhythm team of the breeziest jazz vocal of Sam Jones (bass) and Louis documents of all time. His Hayes (drums)—looking back at take on bossa nova, in colthe spangly side of hard bop, and laboration with Sergio Mendes forward to the grittier rhythms on Cannonball’s Bossa Nova, that would become the group’s is equally upbeat. The nickname “Cannonball” signature later in the decade. Then there’s this consis- was a childhood corruption of Several pieces fall somewhere tently great live album, which “cannibal,” describing the saxo- between those extremes, and overflows with zesty, smiling phonist’s enormous appetite. of them, Feldman’s surging riffs. Listen for just a few “Azule Serape” is the best. It minutes, and you can’t miss the secret of the moves through several different grooves, and, Adderley group: These guys know how much like all of Adderley’s greatest work, masks its fun jazz can be, and they charge through a series formidable structural challenges beneath a of up-tempo toe-tappers as though determined vivacious, perpetually untroubled good-time to spread that joy around. veneer. At least part of the exuberance originates with Adderley’s tone, which many regard as the Genre: Jazz. Released: 1960, “quintessential” sound of the alto saxophone. Riverside. (Reissued 2001, Blue Note.) Key It’s bright and lively, tart, and at the same time Tracks: “Sack o’ Woe,” “Azule Serape,” thoroughly warm. There’s puppy-dog playful- “Our Delight,” “What Is This Thing Called ness in it; at times gregarious laughter comes Love?,” “Big P.” Catalog Choices: tumbling between the lines. When, on the open- Mercy, Mercy, Mercy!; Cannonball Adderley ing jump “Sack o’ Woe,” Adderley dishes out a and Nancy Wilson; Cannonball’s Bossa Nova. blue moan, he slips and slides around, creating Next Stop: Grant Green: Solid. After unbroken curves of deliciously slurred pitches. That: Elvin Jones: Live at the Lighthouse.

ade • aerosmith

Juju Mojo, at Full Strength

The Best of the Classic Years

King Sunny Ade frica is the motherland of rhythm, and the place where music that speaks of great hardship often winds up sounding blissfully angelic. It’s also the world capital for music that unlocks the pelvis. This compilation of

material the Nigerian guitarist They’re also the recordings King Sunny Ade (born Sunday that inspired Island Records Adeniyi) recorded in his founder Chris Blackwell to homeland in the early ’70s is sign Ade and, using techniques a shining example of all that. that made Bob Marley a star, Juju is music of extraordinary launch him as another global liquidity, propelled by preicon. Ade never reached that cisely pitched talking drums kind of acclaim, but that’s and intertwined electric guitar hardly his fault: Those later conversations, sometimes four recordings are marred by goopy at once. There are vocals, and Ade is also known as the rock-style production. To expeAde’s band, which during this Minister of Enjoyment. rience the careful synchronizaperiod contained up to sixteen tion that makes juju go, start instrumentalists and singers, often gathers here. Inside these interlocking rhythms and itself into a church choir. The prayerful themes restless conversations between guitars and float over isolated, sometimes hyperactive drums is music of mesmerizing power. strands of guitar counterpoint, with rhythmic repetitions that lead, slowly but surely, to Genre: World/Nigeria. Released: illumination. 2003, Shanachie. Key Tracks: “Synchro These songs established Ade and his System,” “Ibanuje mon iwon,” “Sunny ti de.” band, first known as the Green Spot Band and Catalog Choice: Juju Music. Next later the African Beats, as preeminent masters Stop: Commander Ebenezer Obey: Juju of what musicologists consider “classic” juju. Jubilee. After That: I. K. Dairo: Ashiko.

Teenage Boy Bliss

Toys in the Attic

Aerosmith erosmith didn’t invent blues-rock, wasn’t the first band to dish bawdy lyrics, and really brought nothing innovative to the game—unless you count the scarves vocalist Steven Tyler tied around his microphone

aerosmith • ahmed

stand. Yet with its third album, Toys in the Attic, the Boston quintet took the basic three-chord guitar scheme, added some old-fashioned showbiz razzle-dazzle, and gave “rawk” a new attitude. Toys is thirty-seven minutes of teenage-boy air-guitar bliss—all double-time peel-outs and leering talk of fast girls, with a hit of rebellion on the side. Its pulverizing backbeats and tightly wound riff boogie ooze horniness (“Walk This Way,” still the prototype rock strut). Its songs about drugs (“Uncle Salty” and “Sweet Emotion,” the cleverest deployment of bass marimba in rock history) are disciplined verse-

chorus odes disguised as spacey meandering. An instant hit that sold millions and established the band as arena headliners, Toys solidified the trick that the “Toxic Twins” songwriting team, vocalist Tyler and guitarist Joe Perry, would turn for decades: slightly sleazy bad-boy stuff made irresistible by fireworks-oncue hookcraft. Genre: Rock. Released: 1975, Columbia. Key Tracks: “Walk This Way,” “Uncle Salty.” Catalog Choices: Rocks; Pump. Next Stop: Van Halen: Van Halen. After That: Mötley Crüe: Dr. Feelgood.

Girl Trouble, on a Lofty Plane

Éthiopiques, Vol. 7: Erè Mèla Mèla Mahmoud Ahmed

rè Mèla Mèla opens with questions, sung in the Amharic language of Ethiopia: “When? Today or tomorrow? When will we gaze into one another’s eyes?” Even if you don’t know that the song is about a faraway lover,

Mahmoud Ahmed’s voice gives aloft by the gentle but steady it away: He sounds frustrated, propulsion. Drawing on the unwilling to accept that a long psychedelic side of Jamaican separation might be in store. dub, the traditional Amharic He’s like lovesick souls five-note scale, and traces of everywhere, with one big jazz and R&B phrasing, Ahmed exception: He has a band describes love as a deep and pumping out wonderfully liquid unending devotion. He’s one of beats behind him. The rhythms those singers whose every chant on this record are unlike anyseems to come from a spiritual thing else you’re likely to hear Erè Mèla Mèlà was originally place. Listen long enough, and from Africa—or anywhere else. released in Ethiopia in 1975. that’s where you’ll end up too. Moving with a snakelike grace, the Ibex band layers tightly fitted guitar parts Genre: World/Ethiopia. Released: over tumbling ritual-ceremony drum pulses. 2002, Buda Musique. Key Tracks: Ahmed gets inside the bubbly flow of the music “Erè Mèla Mèla,” “Fetsum Deng Ledj Nesh.” and dispenses wriggling, athletic, off-the-cuff- Catalog Choice: Almaz. Next sounding vocals. Like other vocalists from his Stop: Tlahoun Gèssèssè: Éthiopiques, homeland, he seeks a speaking-in-tongues type Vol. 17. After That: Mulatu Astatke: of ecstatic state. His voice often trembles, kept Éthiopiques, Vol. 4.

air • ale x ander

The Last Whoopee Cushion Squawk Before Orthodoxy Set In

Air Lore Air

his head-swiveling assault on jazz history was recorded in May 1979, not exactly a high time for jazz. Yet it documents a creative peak: Here are three wise and accomplished members of the free-jazz

community discovering the tremendous symmetry at work inside Scott Joplin’s ragtime follies and the early blues of Jelly Roll Morton. Then, having observed and celebrated those qualities, the three—saxophonist Henry Threadgill, bassist Fred Hopkins, and drummer Steve McCall—go toddling around like cartoon characters in a chase scene. They bash the tunes with billowing gales and squawks, short detours into thundering funk, sudden stop-time breaks, and expansive solos. What happens two minutes into “Buddy Bolden’s Blues” is characteristic: As Threadgill begins his alto solo, the ambling parade rhythm evaporates, replaced by triple-fast bebop. Nobody misses a beat as Bolden is propelled a few decades into the future. Air Lore is jazz as living breathing music, in which old ideas from sixty or more years back

help to fertilize radical new approaches. Shortly after this album’s release, that recycling— which is crucial to jazz and present throughout its evolution—got twisted around by the “new traditionalists.” These young musicians scorned free jazz, ridiculed its practitioners, and championed a narrow definition of the music. It’s likely they never really listened to this timeline-trampling, back-to-the-future experiment, which reminds that before it became a cultural preservation project, jazz was fun. Genre: Jazz. Released: 1979, Arista/Novus. Key Tracks: “The Ragtime Dance,” “Buddy Bolden’s Blues,” “Weeping Willow Rag.” Catalog Choice: Live Air. Next Stop: Charles Mingus: Blues and Roots. After That: Henry Threadgill: Too Much Sugar for a Dime.

Call Him Lonesome

The Ultimate Arthur Alexander

Arthur Alexander

ost people who rode on the social-services bus that Arthur Alexander drove around Cleveland for much of the ’80s didn’t really know who he was. They weren’t aware of his “other” career—as a singer and

songwriter who blended country and soul in ways no one had done before. Being a softspoken fellow, he didn’t talk much about why,

after years on the edges of the music business, he ended up driving a bus. Some accounts say he left the music business to overcome

A le x ander • alice in chains

substance abuse problems, Alexander was a Southern others attribute his disappearsoul man with Otis Redding’s ance to a debilitating illness. ability to work a groove; one Alexander’s cover was head-swiveling moment on blown in 1993, when a “comethis collection comes on the back” album, Lonely Just Like up-tempo “Shot of R&B,” an Me, appeared. The album ebullient party song that should reawakened interest in his have been massive. Though it’s sly, genre-blurring singing, not a full-career retrospecand drew new attention to tive, this compilation gathers his unusual track record as a most of Alexander’s most songwriter. An early original, heart-wrenching work from the “Anna (Go to Him),” was cov1960s. Those enchanted by it ered by the Beatles, and one of should seek out Lonely Just his biggest hits, “You Better like Me, the album that rescued Move On,” reached number 24 Arthur Alexander started his him from the footnotes. Though on the pop charts. (It was later singing career with Spar Music he’d been gone from active done by the Rolling Stones.) in 1960. performance for more than a Alexander’s 1962 version of decade, Alexander hadn’t lost the latter, which is part of this collection, was a step: His plaintive vocals are nothing less the very first recording made at the legendary than astounding. Alexander, just fifty-three, Muscle Shoals studio in Alabama—Alexander was promoting Lonely when he fell ill and and songwriter Rick Hall converted an old died. tobacco warehouse themselves—and it began a career that, despite hot flashes, never fully Genre: R&B. Released: 1993, Razor took off. & Tie. Key Tracks: “Anna (Go to Him),” That lack of success is a great mystery, “You Better Move On,” “Shot of R&B,” “Call Me because there’s passion and grit inside every- Lonesome.” Catalog Choices: Lonely thing Alexander recorded. His nimble, unas- Just like Me; Rainbow Road: The Warner Bros. suming voice had a touch of George Jones in Recordings. Next Stop: James Carr: You it; like Jones, he could make generic odes of Got My Mind Messed Up (see p. 143). After lost love instantly riveting. At the same time, That: O. V. Wright: The Soul of O. V. Wright.

Pure Junkie Menace

Dirt

Alice in Chains eattle’s Alice in Chains has a reputation as a drug-plagued heavy band, purveyors of dark and stormy sludge-rock thickened by abrasive guitar dissonance. That’s only part of the story. This quartet, built around the

extraordinary guitarist Jerry Cantrell and singer Layne Staley (1967–2002), was inter-

ested—during the making of Dirt, anyway—in sharp musical contrasts: Its most bludgeoning

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songs contain outbreaks of Nirvana; Dirt sold three million utterly lovely harmony singcopies, a success that some ing. Its rhythm guitar attack is believe hastened the band’s studded with jerky, odd-meter demise. Staley’s drug problems prog-rock riffs. deepened, preventing the band Those juxtapositions are from touring regularly, and hinthe soul of Dirt, the second dered recording efforts as well. full-length Alice in Chains Subsequent records lack the effort, a sweet counterpoint to extensive palette of Dirt—the the band’s relentlessly bleak lone notable effort that follows imagery. You follow Staley and this is Jar of Flies, the first his crew into the dankest dunEP ever to enter at the top of geon of junkie-existentialist Billboard’s album chart. Alice in Chains (clockwise from despair, because there’s always left): Sean Kinney, Jerry Cantrell, at least a glimmer of light wait- Mike Inez, and Layne Staley. Genre: Rock. ing at the end of the tunnel. Released: 1992, Columbia. Dirt arrived in the fall of 1992, after the Key Tracks: “Angry Chair,” “Down in music scene in Seattle began to explode. a Hole,” “Would?,” “Rooster.” Catalog Though much more of a hard rock band than a Choice: Jar of Flies. Next Stop: Temple grunge or “alternative” band, Alice in Chains of the Dog: Temple of the Dog. After That: benefited from the media frenzy surrounding Days of the New: Days of the New.

The Musings of a Hipster Cynic

Allison Wonderland

“

Mose Allison

don’t worry about a thing ’cause I know nothin’s gonna be alright.” “Stop this world, let me off, there’s too many pigs in the same trough.” “Your mind is on vacation and your mouth is working overtime.”

These and other withering assessments of the human condition are the hallmark of the Tippo, Mississippi–born pianist and singer Mose Allison, whose recordings in the 1960s found a vital middle ground between jazz and blues, hipster jive and social commentary. One part Mark Twain and one part Willie Dixon, Allison At age 5, Mose Allison realbegan by interpreting the blues ized he could play the piano “straight”—his early records, by ear.

including the “Back Country Suite” and “Parchman Farm,” featured here, reveal a student of boogie and New Orleans barrelhouse who’s also familiar with more modern bebop blues derivations. By the mid-’60s, when he signed on with Atlantic Records, Allison was in the grip of a misanthropic muse. He began writing original songs, many built on traditional

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outlines—anyone who’s heard a few twelve-bar blues tunes will recognize the basic formulations of his backing tracks on this careerhighlights anthology. What sets him apart are the lyrics, which include eccentric rants on the evils of city life, musings on the corrupting influence of women, and fanciful mockacademic riffs on the alchemy of love (“Your Molecular Structure”). They’re a hipster’s wry take on what’s wrong with the world, served with a glib bounce in the step and a twinkle in

the eye, and a laconic style that’s well suited to the task of lampooning assorted vanities. Genre: Vocals. Released: 1994, Rhino/Atlantic. Key Tracks: “Your Mind Is on Vacation,” “Stop This World,” “Everybody Cryin’ Mercy,” “Ever Since I Stole the Blues.” Catalog Choice: Down Home Piano. Next Stop: Jamie Cullum: Twentysomething. After That: Oscar Brown Jr.: Sin and Soul (see p. 122).

An Essential Live Rock Document

At Fillmore East

The Allman Brothers Band

he Allman Brothers Band was just beginning to generate national attention when it pulled into Manhattan’s Fillmore East auditorium for its first headlining stand in March 1971. All four shows from the run,

and Jaimoe (Jai Johanny including a final one that was Johanson). Everything develdelayed for hours because ops organically and everyone’s of a bomb scare (and didn’t united in search of the kind end until around 6 a.m.), were of collective musical ecstasy recorded. Producer Tom Dowd that’s usually found on John took the tapes, trimmed down Coltrane records. some solos and completely The long-haul truckers of edited others, and delivered rock, the Allmans establish a At Fillmore East, the album groove and keep it cranking. that transformed this fastrising curiosity from Macon, The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame They’re happy as long as the Georgia, into one of the truly called the Allman Brothers boogie is scooting along and great American rock bands Band “the principal architects nobody’s stopping them from of Southern Rock.” doing eighty-five miles an of all time. hour down the freeway. Dowd There were lots of wonderful live acts in rock circa 1971. But the thrash- once described the Allmans’ twin-lead-guitar ing first choruses of “Statesboro Blues” and attack—Duane Allman playing slide and “Trouble No More” suggest that this one is dif- Dicky Betts on six-string—as “frightening,” ferent. It’s a rock band built on a jazz notion: and this album shows you why. When one that the journey can be more interesting than finishes his climb to the mountaintop, the the simple attention-grabbing refrain. Loose other begins, taking “Whipping Post” and “In and free-floating solos involve the entire band, Memory of Elizabeth Reed” to new frenzied including the drum tandem of Butch Trucks plateaus. Just when that settles down, along

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comes organist (and vocalist) Gregg Allman, working out on a hot-sounding Hammond B3 to extend the marathon a bit further. (Check out his romp through the eight-minute “Stormy Monday.”) Fillmore East, now expanded with additional performances, established the Allmans among the rock elite, but, almost immediately, the band hit hard times: In October 1971, fourteen days after the album went gold, Duane was killed on his motorcycle. The band picked up again, and its next release, Eat a Peach (so named because it was a peach truck that killed Duane), included an entire album of live music from the Fillmore date as well as sedate, beautifully contemplative studio material.

Since then, the group, led by Gregg Allman, has shown remarkable resilience: No matter who’s on stage, the band seems to recapture at will the greasy-boogie locomotion of the Fillmore recordings. That’s no small feat, given that At Fillmore East remains one of the best live albums in rock history. Ornery and loud, it’s perfect driving music for the road that goes on forever. Genre: Rock. Released: 1971, Mercury. Key Tracks: “Midnight Rider,” “Whipping Post,” “Statesboro Blues.” Catalog Choices: Eat a Peach. Gregg Allman: Laid Back. Next Stop: Lynyrd Skynyrd: One More from the Road.

Folk Activism Begins Here

Complete General Recordings

The Almanac Singers

odern folk music might have started before this—musicologist Alan Lomax once fixed the date at March 3, 1940, when Pete Seeger and Woody Guthrie met at a migrant worker benefit concert. But these

1941 recordings, which feature Seeger (initially identified as “Pete Bowers”) and Guthrie, mark a beginning in terms of temperament: Here, typical folk fare (songs of the sea) is offset by early activist screeds on the rights of workers and American involvement in World War II. The Almanac Singers, an avowedly leftist group that included Sonny Terry, Brownie Refusing to fit the mold of pop McGhee, Lee Hays, and Millard singers, the Almanac Singers Lampell, flip-flopped on the often performed in their street war. Its first album, Songs for clothes. John Doe, which collected singles issued in 1941, was loudly against it, show of that

but within a year, the group, recognizing that pacifism was no longer a plausible platform after Germany’s invasion of the Soviet Union, was writing pro-war tales of bravery. One of its most celebrated later songs was “Round and Round Hitler’s Grave.” The group was branded for its leftist leanings; although the Almanac Singers were responsible for the term “hootenanny” (which it defined as an informal gathering of folk singers and listeners), when ABC-TV put together a folk name in the early ’60s, Seeger

A lmanac singers • alpert

was banned. But the Almanac approach— simple declarations answered by hardscrabble vocal harmonies—spread widely. The group’s sound was seized by many folk performers, and became the basic blueprint for the folk boom of the 1950s. Among the borrowers were the Weavers, the subsequent group formed by Seeger and Hays, which rerecorded “Hard, Ain’t It Hard” and other Almanac songs, and carried the group’s spirit

into the next iteration of folk, which began in the late ’50s. Genre: Folk. Released: 1941, General. (Reissued MCA.) Key Tracks: “Hard, Ain’t It Hard,” “The Dodger Song.” Catalog Choice: Pete Seeger: If I Had a Hammer (Songs of Hope and Struggle). Next Stop: The Weavers: At Carnegie Hall. After That: The Kingston Trio: College Concert.

More Songs About Food . . .

Whipped Cream and Other Delights

Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass merica wasn’t exactly clamoring for instrumental pop in the winter of 1965. And it’s safe to say there was little demand for an album that contained foods in all the song titles. And yet several months after its release,

decidedly unique in those a Herb Alpert and the Tijuana early British Invasion days— Brass single called “A Taste no other recording act was fusof Honey” ballooned into a ing traditional Mexican music monster hit, and this album (the mariachi fanfares that landed in the Billboard Top 10, herald bullfights) with jazz, where it stayed for an astoundBrazilian samba, and R&B, a ing sixty-one weeks (eight of curious but utterly workable them at number one). TV’s The combination that has enshrined Dating Game pounced on the Alpert as a patron saint of craze, using “Whipped Cream” to introduce the bachelorettes, The model here was actually lounge exotica ever since. While so much subseand the later hit “Spanish Flea” covered in shaving cream. quent instrumental pop (Kenny to bring on the bachelors. What explains the left-field success of G et al.) is just noodling indulgence, Whipped the Tijuana Brass? Certainly some credit goes Cream works because the Brass (which, until to the album’s cover, which features a sultry this album erupted, was really just a bunch model swathed in whipped cream. (Alpert, of L.A. studio musicians) focuses so singlewho co-owned the creative, independent A&M mindedly on rhythm, even on such calmer selecRecords with Jerry Moss, recalled, years later, tions as “Tangerine.” They all play as though that this was the album where he “realized how it’s their responsibility to sustain the sense of important it is to be visual with instrumental motion—of particular note are the athletic bass music.”) And the band’s general sound was lines of Pat Senatore, which respect mariachi

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tradition while grooving like it’s already 1969. Then, on top, the famed Brass approaches each theme as a percussive endeavor, punching out staccato phrases with militaristic precision. Hearing these tunes now, divorced from their moment, is instructive: What’s often dismissed as pure period froth turns out to have some juicy meat on the bone.

Genre: Pop. Released: 1965, A&M. Key Tracks: “A Taste of Honey,” “Tangerine,” “Whipped Cream.” Catalog Choices: Whipped Cream and Other Delights, Rewhipped; Going Places! Next Stop: Chuck Mangione: Feels So Good. After That: Jim Hall: Concierto.

The Now Sound of the Latin Diaspora

Arepa 3000: A Venezuelan Journey into Space

Los Amigos Invisibles

espite the subtitle, there’s no space exploration on the second U.S. release from the super-inventive Venezuelan dance band Los Amigos Invisibles. There is, however, a fair bit of time travel: One minute the six-piece

ensemble is chasing (and nattily mickry. Not this stuff. Following embellishing) a retro ’60s mod the example of Funkadelic, an vibe, complete with shimmerobvious inspiration, Los Amigos ing organ. Then along comes a Invisibles start with authentic snappy drum loop, and suddenly grooves, and add the nuttiness the pulse quickens, and we’re on top. The lyrics of “El baile three hours into some Ibiza rave del Sobón” amount to a derisive circa 2000, with the DJ spinparody of the rituals of merenning a weird mix of samba and gue; the music, meanwhile, is stutter-stepping rhythm at 180 a totally locked-up and utterly beats per minute. Lead singer Julio Briceno at reverent celebration of the Those transitions happen the Coachella Music Festival dance style. That cheeky comfast and reveal much about the in 2006. mingling offers a hint of what intentions of this unusual outfit: the next utopia might sound Los Amigos approach music the way a globe- like if Los Amigos have anything to do with it: trotting DJ would, segueing between eras and One globe under a giddy pan-Latin groove. styles without ever compromising the essential Latinness of the pulse. In these grand, campy Genre: World/Venezuela. Released: songs, hints of old-school cha-cha bump into 2000, Luaka Bop. Key Tracks: “Mujer Brazilian batucada, and grooves that echo policía,” “La vecina,” “Masturbation Session,” rumbling ’70s funk magically transform into “No le matas mano.” Catalog Choice: gaudy disco fantasies (one of which is titled Superpop Venezuela. Next Stop: “Masturbation Session”). Often music drawn Funkadelic: One Nation Under a Groove. from such far-flung sources feels like gim- After That: Bloque: Bloque (see p. 100).

ammons • anderson

Talk About an Auspicious Start

The First Day

Albert Ammons and Meade “Lux” Lewis

ohn Hammond’s Spirituals to Swing concert at Carnegie Hall in December 1938 (see p. 811) did more than expose groundbreaking jazz and blues musicians to New York audiences for the first time: It created demand for

their services among record labels. Producer Alfred Lion was so wowed by the boogiewoogie pianists Meade “Lux” Lewis (1905– 1964) and Albert Ammons (1907–1949) that he set up a label of his own to record them. Just two weeks later, the intrepid Lion captured eight tunes by Lewis (including a five-part original suite called “The Blues”), nine by Ammons, and two jovial, fast-moving duets. In a single day. The results became the very first recordings pressed by the Blue Note label. They’re also some of the least ostentatious piano-boogie recordings of all time. The feeling throughout is loose and relaxed, as both pianists are inclined to paw through ambling themes rather than do the high-octane showoff thing. Lewis is the nuts-and-bolts guy; his pieces move at an easygoing clip, and drift out of tempo every once in a while. Ammons is the barn burner: His “Boogie Woogie Stomp” swings with a giddy ferociousness, like he’s dancing with the piano. His aptly titled “Bass Goin’ Crazy” is a series of scale-

like runs with a serious wow factor. Lots of boogie had that impact. What sets Ammons and Lewis apart is their shared insistence that there’s more going on than just dazzling look-how-fast-the-left-handmoves demonstrations. The First Day has the expected bells and whistles—the wildcatting lines, irreverent shout choruses, and slipping and sliding mayhem that spans the length of the keyboard. But it’s also got some blues reflection in it, and moments of poignancy that are precious now, considering how showbizsensational boogie-woogie soon became. Jazz. Released: 1939, Blue Note. Key Tracks: “Bass Goin’ Crazy,” “The Blues (Pts. 1–5),” “Boogie Woogie Stomp,” “Nagasaki” (duet). Catalog Choices: Ammons: Eight to the Bar. Lewis: The Blues Piano Artistry of Meade “Lux” Lewis. Next Stop: Pete Johnson: King of Boogie. After That: Willie “The Lion” Smith: Relaxin’ After Hours. Genre:

A Voice That Challenged America

Spirituals

Marian Anderson fter hearing Marian Anderson (1897–1993) sing in Salzburg in 1935, conductor Arturo Toscanini remarked that “a voice like hers is heard only once in a hundred years.” Alas, it took a while for listeners in her

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homeland to appreciate the known pieces (“Go Down, smooth contralto with a superb Moses,” “Nobody Knows the range. Like many African Trouble I’ve Seen”), as well American artists, Anderson as lesser-known compositions faced ongoing and entrenched (“Soon-ah Will Be Done,” racial discrimination. Ironically, “Ride On, King Jesus”) that she rose to prominence after Anderson helped to rehabilione such incident: In 1939, tate. Recognizing that typical the Daughters of the American opera-singer discipline won’t Revolution canceled an Easter help bring these songs to life, Sunday recital in Washington, Anderson sings with great D.C., because of Anderson’s resolve and an evangelist’s color. This caused an uproar: Anderson received numerous firmness, taking church singing First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt honors and prizes during her just one step toward art song. renounced her DAR member- lifetime, including Kennedy Anderson had other career ship, and a free concert at the Center Honors and a Grammy milestones after this—in 1955, Lincoln Memorial was sched- for Lifetime Acheivement. she became the first African uled. Seventy-five thousand American to sing a principal people came to hear her sing. The performance role at the Metropolitan Opera—but her singmade her a star and a symbol of equal rights. ing here towers above even those significant On the program that day were several accomplishments. As she interprets these simspirituals, songs of faith, many of which origi- ple songs, Anderson brings listeners face-tonated during slavery. Anderson learned these face with the stoic dignity and stirring melody songs as a child—beginning at age six, she that rose up in response to an ignoble chapter sang in church choirs in Philadelphia, often of American history. teaching herself the soprano, alto, tenor, and bass parts. She later went through rigorous Genres: Classical Gospel. operatic training, but managed to retain her Released: 1953, RCA. (Reissued 1999.) feeling for the austere and often haunting Key Tracks: “Go Down, Moses,” “Let melodies of spirituals. Us Break Bread Together,” “My Lord, What Recorded between 1936 and 1952, this a Morning,” “De Gospel Train.” Catalog collection offers an excellent introduction to Choice: Brahms Alto Rhapsody and Lieder. spirituals, and contains some of the greatest Next Stop: Jessye Norman: The Essential recordings Anderson ever made. There are Jessye Norman. After That: Archie Shepp definitive piano-and-voice versions of well- and Horace Parlan: Goin’ Home (see p. 694).

The Ruin of Many . . .

“The House of the Rising Sun”

The Animals

f the many brothels in the folklore of New Orleans, none is more legendary than the one run by Madame Marianne LeSoleil Levant from 1862 to 1874. The so-called House of the Rising Sun (from a translation of her name)

animals • aphe x twin

inspired one of the most gambling, sung from a male enduring songs in American perspective. music, a cautionary tale about Amazingly, this doesn’t what happens to a poor girl diminish the song. Surrounded who follows a drunkard to New by a halo of haunting reverb Orleans. (Hint: He disappears, and the hovering chords and she becomes miserable from Alan Price’s organ, Eric working in the sex trade.) Burdon winds his way through Based on the tune of the arpeggiated guitar line a traditional English balas though counseling a little lad, the original—with lyr- The group was dubbed “The brother about the traps that ics folklorist Alan Lomax Animals” because of their rau- await out in the big world. He traced to the Kentucky duo cous stage antics. knows he’s made a mess of of Georgia Turner and Bert things, and though there’s the Martin, though exact authorship is impos- hint of shame in his delivery, he won’t play the sible to verify—is sung from the woman’s typical helpless wayward drunk. Singing sorperspective. It was first recorded in 1934 by rowfully but not in defeat, he asks for compasthe Smoky Mountain singers Clarence Ashley sion the way all the great soul singers do, by and Gwen Foster, and since then has been making clear that what happened to him could modified endlessly—Nina Simone renders it happen to anybody. as a disconsolate moan, Bob Dylan sings it in a severe tone on his debut album. The most Genre: Rock. Released: 1964, famous iteration of the song, the Animals’ MGM. Appears on: The Animals. Other 1964 chart-topping hit, is also one of the more Interpretations: Nina Simone: Four radically altered: Fearing that a song about Women; Joan Baez: Joan Baez (see p. 39). prostitution wouldn’t get on the radio, the Catalog Choice: Animalism. Next British band changed the lyrics into a sermon Stop: Blind Willie Johnson: The Complete about the more generic evils of drinking and Blind Willie Johnson (see p. 400).

The Home Brew of a Genius

Selected Ambient Works 85–92

Aphex Twin

ike lots of people involved in electronic dance music, Richard D. James— operating under the nom de pop Aphex Twin—learned how to use synthesizers and beat boxes (and even sandpaper on a turntable

instead of a vinyl record) to make powerful, transformative music. He created some notable stuff in the early ’90s, earning a reputation (and significant cash) as a remixer with a knack for scrumptious, detailed tracks. Meanwhile his heart was elsewhere. For his own amusement,

he began exploring less frenetic pulses that pull apart the building blocks of electronica. With this measured, understated music— collected on the homemade Selected Ambient Works 85–92—James became the patriarch of ambient techno.

aphe x twin • apple

To most of humanity, “ambient techno” will seem another meaningless genre classification, and a contradiction besides—techno connotes pulse and motion, while ambient music suggests sounds that could hover in the air for hours. James reconciles these ideas brilliantly. He surrounds simple, steady beats with synthesized “auras” that seem to envelop the sound field, radiating calm. His settings are uncluttered. At times the sharp edges of electronica are blunted by the recording, which was allegedly made on a primitive four-track cassette machine. This turns out to be a positive: While much club music is so pristine as to be off-putting, the soundscapes on Selected Ambient Works—particularly the eerily pastoral “Ageispolis” and “Pulsewidth”—are mysterious, inviting in a fuzzy analog way. This album is one of a small cluster of electronica records designed for listening and reflection. Incredibly, it’s also got a bit of the

Ecstasy generation’s joy in it. Taking just a step away from clubland, James finds himself in a detached, desolate netherworld, yet with the energy and the lust of the club still ringing in his ears. This inspires music that aims for the scope of a symphony orchestra, and the sudden subtle emotional ripples of great piano-trio jazz. Listen on headphones to fully appreciate the bubbling and bright possibilities James found while puttering in the lab. Genre: Electronica. Released: 1993, Apollo. (Reissued 2002, PIAS America.) Key Tracks: “Ageispolis,” “We Are the Music Makers,” “Pulsewidth,” “Delphium.” Buyer Beware: Volume 2 of Selected Ambient Works, issued the following year, is nothing like this—mostly oceanic washes of texture with very little rhythm. Next Stop: Jon Hassell/Brian Eno: Fourth World, Vol. 1: Possible Musics. After That: David Torn: Cloud About Mercury.

A Ninety-Word Title, and It Doesn’t Begin to Sum This Up . . .

When the Pawn . . .

Fiona Apple

omething profound happened to Fiona Apple between her debut and the making of this, her second record. When she first appeared, on the smoldering 1996 million-seller entitled Tidal, the New York singer,

songwriter, and pianist seemed a competent if undistinguished student of Nina Simone and less original torch singers. Three years later, at the age of twenty-two, Apple delivered one of the great rococo leaps of the rock era, this series of dialogs with diffident, recalcitrant, or otherwise insensitive lovers set to flamboyant, tightly wound music. Theories abound about the possible causes of the transformation. Apple herself explained at the time that she was just curious about songs and structures. “I didn’t want to be trapped by a style. . . . The whole idea

about music is to develop your own instincts, which is hard when the culture is telling you to sound a certain way and think a certain way.” At least partial credit goes to Jon Brion, who produced When the Pawn . . . . He surrounds Apple’s impetuous poutage with oompah beats and carnival horns, stomping-feet Broadway bluster, and bits of funk. Brion created some funhouse orchestrations that are the musical equivalent of the sad clown’s painted smile. They cast Apple’s personal torments in upbeat, surprisingly accessible settings. Brion’s schemes also offer Apple a wide